A good bad day

I know yesterday was probably rough for some of my friends. Not in a really bad things happening way, just in a I didn't expect this type way. A couple of the best players on our soccer team transferred themselves to different teams. I don't know if it's the type of thing that is causing hurt feelings (my feelings certainly aren't hurt, but I don't know about the rest of the team), but it made soccer a lot different than it has been for the last two seasons. We lost our game yesterday 0-1, with a goal that I think was mostly luck on their end, and because we have trouble finishing. There were some good shots, but they had a good goalie.

Half of my soccer team is also on my softball team (okay, maybe not half, but a good majority). We had a double header yesterday as well. The soccer team showed up for the first game, which we lost. To the best team in the league. They totally stack this team. I don't know how it's fun for them to come out and play with people who can't even give them a run for their money, but that's just me. I like to have a close, hard-fought game. The soccer players left the rest of the team to the second game a man down. We got run ruled. Bummer.

However...

I hit a double in the first game. I think it's the first time I've hit a ball out of the infield (even if it did roll out). Right past the first baseman, into a gap. Don't ask me how I did this, since I'm right handed and for all intents and purposes should always hit the ball toward third base as I'm not skilled enough to pull the ball the other way. Nonetheless, it made me feel pretty good. On top of that, after missing an easy throw in the first inning, I made a couple of outs playing second base, and even caught a pop up that I thought I was going to miss. It was one of those moments when you close your eyes and pray that the ball finds your glove. It did this time. In spite of the loss, I felt pretty good about the game, and headed over to the soccer field.

Our coach has put me in front a lot this season (all two games of it), and I think it's kind of fun. Playing defense is great, I love it, but even the potential to score is exciting. It was a hard fought game, and I felt like I was keeping up with the pace. I think I still need a little coaching about where to be when I'm playing forward, but I also think I'm starting to get the hang of it. So in spite of losses, I had a good day.

Reasons

I need to stop leaving my door open. You may recall the moth incident. Today, I found a cricket in my bedroom. Good thing I'm not afraid of insects!

But the weather at night has been so beautiful.

Why I can't go to book stores

I set out this morning on a variety of errands. Costco to develop my pictures (which I'll post later), to Eddie Bauer to buy a birthday gift for my brother, to the grocery store, and to Borders to buy a travel guide to Norway. When I got there, I was greeted by the usual display of books...the buy one get one 50% off, the staff picks, etc. I love books, and was easily sucked in to the deals. If I bought $30 worth of books, I could get a voucher for a free book in two weeks time (assuming I bought $30 worth of books at that time too). Buying $30 worth of books will never be a problem for me. In addition to walking out with the Lonely Planet book I came for, I also took home an Asian cook book, a dessert cook book, Into Thin Air, A Walk in the Woods and Coffee, Tea or Me?. I hope the last is as amusing as it seems. Looks like I'll be busy for the next few weeks. If you're in the area and looking for dessert, there will probably be an experiment on the stove at my place. And when that wears off, I can just head back for my free book (and whatever else catches my eye)!

Failure means I'm learning, right?

Two posts on the same day?? I know, it's a bit out of the ordinary, but I thought I'd share so you'd all know that there is something out there that I can't do (yet).

When I moved into my apartment, my brother asked what he could get me for a house warming gift...I didn't know. Eventually, he sent me a cheese making kit-something we'd talked about, but I'd never gotten around to trying.

I immediately called a friend to figure out where I could get some good milk, and headed out the next day for a gallon of milk. Matthew said the mozzarella was good, and easy, and I love to make pizza here at home, so that was what I decided to try. I got out everything I'd need, and started making a mess of my kitchen.


Here's the milk cooking...

Eventually, you get to a point where the milk should separate-curds and whey. This looked to me like the picture in my recipe book, so I headed on to the next step.

This is where I ran into trouble. I put the curds back on the stove and pushed them around with my spoon. At this point, I was supposed to drain off the whey and pull the curds like taffy.


There was no getting the curds out with a slotted spoon, so I resorted to a colander. It was not until I poured the whey I didn't use for bread down the drain that I discovered just how many curds I really lost...but that's neither here nor there. At this point, the curds are supposed to be in a state where they can be pulled like taffy. There was no pulling. They fell apart in my hands. Naturally, I called Matthew to try to figure out where I'd gone wrong. With some encouragement from him, I walked across the street for another gallon of milk and tried again.

As you can see, the result was not much better. I can handle not getting it right once, but twice was pushing it! This seemed a little more like cheese, but still not right, and it tasted pretty bad.

It's been a couple of weeks now, and I spent some time reading up on other methods of making mozzarella. I thought I had a handle on things, so I bought another gallon of milk so I could try again. Today was the day for trying, but the cheese gods were not kind to me. Below is today's result-not any better than the first two.
While I haven't completely given up the idea of making my own cheese, I think the next attempt will have to be when I'm in the same city as Matthew so he can give me some pointers about where I'm going wrong.

Do I detect a double standard?

I was chatting with a friend last night. She asked "So you and Chad don't see each other anymore?" (Chad and I broke up almost a year ago, mind you).

I answered "No, we don't."

She said "Stupid boy." I pointed out the fact that I was the one who ended the relationship, at which point she said something to the effect of "Well, then, if you felt like you didn't want to be in the relationship anymore, it was the right thing to have done."

So, it's okay for me to break things off if I feel it's not right, but if he'd been the one who felt things weren't right he should have stuck with the relationship? Even if he didn't want to? Why is that? Or do you really think that I should have stuck with it, and were surprised to find out I broke it off, and trying to cover your tracks by the second statement? Do people think that talking down about someone I care about will make me feel better about the fact that a dating relationship with that person didn't work? I have a lot of respect for Chad, and while things didn't work out for us, that doesn't mean I don't care about him still, nor does it mean I want to hear you call him (or anyone else I've dated for that matter) stupid, no matter who was the one to end the relationship. Sometimes things just don't work out between two people, and no matter the reason, I think both still deserve to be respected.

It's true!

I've lived in Texas for over two years now. In years past, I kept hearing people talk about the amazing wildflowers, yet never saw them. My first viewing of a bluebonnet was in a pot at a nursery. Not exactly prime viewing for something that's supposed to pop up everywhere. This year has been different than years past, and in a good way. The flowers are amazing!

I took a bike ride in OP Schnabel park, and liked these white flowers and the barbed wire fence together.

I took a drive this morning looking for flowers to take pictures of, since I keep promising my family pictures, and the bluebonnets are starting to fade. This just seemed right-cows grazing in a field of flowers. I imagine that they were more spectacular last week, yet they still made a great picture.

These are some more flowers I passed on my bike.


I love the juxtaposition-a prickly pear and a field of Indian paintbrushes. They are an amazing color too. There was a small oil rig in this field-I think I got a good shot with my SLR. I'll post more pictures after I get the film developed.

This is a close-up of an Indian paintbrush. A little different than the ones I got used to in Utah.

Bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes. The two colors look amazing together.
Bluebonnets and prickly pear-this is just across the street from my church building.
A bee on a bluebonnet. Feel free to make whatever puns come to mind:)

Prayer

I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately. It always seems to happen when I reach Ether in the Book of Mormon. He prays for some big things, and his prayers are answered, seemingly in the way he expected. I think about this when I read about Gideon in the Old Testament too. Judges talks about him praying for a sign, then another sign that it is the Lord's will for him to lead an army to save Israel. First the dew falls only on a fleece, and he wrings out a bowl full of water. The second night, the dew falls all around the fleece, but the fleece stays dry.

In Ether, the brother of Jared asks that their languages not be confounded at the time of the great tower-he asks this not only for his family, but also his friends. The Lord did not confound their languages.

I don't know the entire situation behind either of these stories. Probably, there are things in play that I'm completely ignorant of, yet I think about what I might do in similar situations. It seems almost presumptuous to me to ask what these men asked, and they not only asked, but had their wishes granted. I wonder as I recognize some of my shortcomings in the area of prayer how I can learn from these men, and other examples we're given in the Scriptures. While an attitude of "You'll never know unless you ask" seems a little too flippant, I think I need to approach prayer differently. Strangely (or maybe not, since it is part of a woman's nature), I am much more apt to ask for big blessings on behalf of others than I am to ask for things for myself. When I pray, maybe instead of worrying about whether what I want to ask is too much (because is anything really too much for the Lord?), I need to really consider what I want, what I think the Lord wants, and not be afraid to ask for things that may be in the plan, even if they seem presumptuous. Sometimes blessings are predicated upon our asking for them. If I'm too afraid to ask, I won't be blessed, nor will the people around me for whom I pray.